Nov 28 - tripping around

On Friday we set out a little after 10:30, going south to Merritt Island. We checked out the Manatee observation deck -- no manatees. We checked out the boat ramp where there are often manatees -- no manatees. It's lucky that we had a good view of them at Epcot !

Collette's allergies

We continued down the road to the Visitors' information center and saw three aligators in the ditch along the road -- at last success ! There was one small one and two large ones. At the center, out on their nature walk we saw one very large gator off in the distance and then in one spot, a little guy about three feet long just below us. Sandy and Bill had seen some large turtles in the ditch as well, but we saw none at the information center.

It was getting late, from a lunch perspective, but we headed to Port Orange and had lunch at a restaurant called The North Turn. They have all sorts of pictures on the wall from past Daytona races, including some shots of races where 1/2 of the oval was on the beach, the other half on A1A. They were fascinating. We sat on the deck outside and had lunch -- fish sandwich for me (surprise), scallops wrapped in bacon for Bill, Sesame seared Tuna for Sandy and chicken sandwich for Collette. We all had French Fries.

Lunch was good but soon over. Since we had eaten at 3pm our plan was to simply have salads, cheese and crackers for dinner -- which we did. Before that, however, we had to tend to a possible automotive problem.

On the way back home, on I95, the vibration was intense. We pulled off at the exit for Port Orange to check the wheels and all looked ok. When I pulled off, however (since I was driving Bill's van) I noticed a braking vibration which diminished after a couple of brake cycles. Resuming the trip home the vibration was less but I could still hear the wheels. Once home Bill and I took the car out for a little brake adjustment / cleaning run. This involves getting the car up to 35 mph, standing on the brakes fairly hard, braking to 10 mph and then repeating the exercise.

When we got home we checked the tires / rims and the drivers side front rim was hot -- burn-your-skin hot. The other rim was warm -- road-driving warm. I had postulated that the vibration was caused by a sticky caliper, which is why we did the brake cleaning run. When we were driving through Daytona earlier I had made a fairly hard stop when someone stopped quickly in front of me -- not enough to trip the anti-lock brakes or anything, but hard just the same. It's possible that deposited some pad material on the rotors or the extra force caused the caliper to stick.

Long story short, we let the tires & rims cool and then drove out to Home Depot on SR44, didn't find any significant temperature difference. We then drove south on I95 to the Edgewater exit. The rim was still fine. We're hoping that this will be indicative of the whole trip. Bill has a long drive tomorrow. To aid the cooling process I hosed them down -- they were both hot, steaming, but that driver's side rim was positively sizzling. Of course several hard braking cycles from 35 mph to 10 mph would also heat them up.

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It's morning again. On the car issue, one of the other things that I did last evening was check the tire pressure on that wheel and it was around 32 vs the recommended 36. It's probably reading even lower this morning. That's not enough to cause huge problems but everything adds up. I still think that it was a sticky caliper that hopefully has loosened up. Bill will have to keep an eye on it on the way home, stopping at the first rest stop to check.

The tires need to be inflated to "maximum vehicle load" since the vehicle modifications to support the automatic wheelchair ramp add significantly to the weight. There is a revised sticker placed by the vehicle modification company that lists the maximum load of passengers, gear, wheelchair etc. at 1175. That's not much considering that the chair is probably 400 pounds, two people add another 300 pounds, leaving little for luggage. Even though there is space, you wouldn't want to have 4 people, a couple of wheelchairs, luggage ... you'd be scraping the ground.

As planned, we had salad, cheese, crackers, pumpkin pie etc. for dinner. Somehow that adds up though and we were full again. Bill and I took Abby for a walk, since she'd been around the house all day. A little after 10pm I hit the sack, leaving Sandy, Bill and Collette watching TV. I don't think they stayed up more than another half-hour though.

Today, I think the plan is that Bill and Collette hit the road before 10am, dropping the rental chair off along the way. I'll help Bill get their chair into the van. I plan to go for a bike ride, probably after an early lunch.

Stef & Aaron would have taken possession of their house yesterday and started moving. Today is moving day. They are doing this themselves -- I don't envy that -- with some help from paid helpers. The move is only a few blocks so they can make multiple trips but it's still a big job. We'll talk to them later today and see how it's going, but I suspect that they will be working late into this evening.

We have two more weeks and we're on the road again. It will be a quiet two weeks with nothing in particular planned other than some Christmas shopping (and biking of course). We'll probably make a trip into Orlando, which is like going to Sudbury, but somehow down here it seems like a long trip. I guess that relative to walking to Food Lion or driving 2 miles to Publix, it's a long trip!

That's it ...